Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Is this overkill????

Here are the plans for the dock that I am building in my new pond. I am sinking new treated electrical poles and will wait until the pond is full before putting the deck. Is the amount of poles sufficient? Also, how deep would you sink the poles in clay soil? The water depth at the end of the dock will only be ~6'.

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Keith, looks good, here is a thread I put up with a pic of what hubby did for our dock, its not as big as yours but it might help. He is a carpenter, and used what we had here, hope it helps.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=8628&Number=89865#Post89865

Keith, the number of posts per span is determined by what size joists you are planning to use. I think you could very safely use six or eight posts with appropriately sized/spaced joists and beams. If you're not planning to use the posts for the railing, a cantilevered design like this (not to scale) might be an option. It has a slight "floating on air" look.

Wow, Keith....tryin' to take my crown as the King of Overkill, eh?
Ryan's drawing pretty much describes what we did, except our supports are 6 x 6 treated on 12" dia reinforced concrete piers. This thread is the whole Magilla, so I'll summarize: 14' x 16' deck supported by four 6 x 6's, all with an 18' x 20' metal roof. To this day, I am still a little nervous about our 12" concrete pier footings. I question that perhaps they should have been 16" to provide the bearing surface against the clay below them. Oh well...we'll find out.

Keith,
My free standing swim platform is 12 x 16 and is on 4 6' 3" galv pipes anchored with SS anchor bolts and grouted to the bedrock. I have cable cross bucking, and it is very stiff. I used double 2x10 headers and 2x6 joists 12" OC (for the plastic decking). Word to the wise(er than me)... I used treated lumber for construction, and it was very wet and heavy (with the treatment) Built the whole thing in a couple of days and it was perfectly true. Developed about a 1" sag in the middle as that sloppy wet lumber dried over the next months. I don't have a digital camera yet, (waiting for delivery) but you can see it from my homepage posted on my profile. Good luck with your project, although good planning (like you are doing) eliminates much of the need for that...

I'm having one built that will be a 4'x10' ramp leading up to a 12'x16' dock. The design will be similar to what Ryan said except the double 2"x10" beams will run parrallel to pond bank and be supported by 6 - 6"x6" posts (3 posts for each beam).

I agree that the "floating on air" look is nice. And if you will be swimming in the pond you are less likely to be hitting the posts when you approach the dock.

Posts that are plumb with the end joist or joist header make it a little easier to mount a ladder to and the same posts can be used to mount a railing to. My dock is only 4'x16', just enough for my dog and I to fish off of and feed off of. I didn't want a swimming ladder or railing so I built a low profile (less than 5" total height including joists and decking) welded steel frame dock about 3" above the full water mark. Since it's so low to the water I didn't think I'd need a ladder to get out. My wife likes it because she can float get on and off her raft without touching the water. The problem I have now is the pond is over 2' below the dock due to dry weather, making it pretty tough to drag my fat self back out.

Thanks for the replies. Any idea how deep I should sink the poles? They will be in heavy clay. Do I need to concrete them?

Keith, we had a thread 1-2 months ago which figured stuff like post size, length of post below ground, length of post above ground, and Flanaghan's Finagling Factor into a Strength-of-Materials type equation that would probably give you an exact answer (given that you know the diameter of the t-poles). If ewest or someone doesn't find it first, I can look for it later for you (I'm overdue at the pond construction site right now).

My Shadetree Polebarn Contractor answer is 4' deep, 5' to be sure, if the dock will not have stuff above the plank level. Add a foot if you are going to put on a roof. If you can have the poles driven, run them straight in to the clay. If you will be digging holes and placing them in, the holes need backfilled with nice, tight material and concrete fill is probably the best & easiest way to do that. It's hard to pack a hole much over 3.5' deep with s spudbar (for me, anyway).

Keith,
I only used 4 poles on my dock that is 16'x32'. We built a 16' square section on dry ground and used a track hoe to set it in the pond, as it was already full. We used the bucket of the track hoe to drive the posts down some and level it. Our soil is probably much different than yours, so compaction was not much of an issue. I'd agree with the above that you could get away with 6 poles. The hard part will be accounting fo any settling.